I wanna see that offline website, it sounds pretty awesome.

Thanks, I'd be glad to put it up, but I still need to put up alot more data that I won't get until later into production. Also, the walkthrough is there and I don't want to release much of the story till we are finished.

If you've played any other RM product. Most people make a little text document about their game when they zip up their game. I just wanted to do something a little more flashy. I wanted to keep it small so there is no flash, not many images, just basic HTML to keep it small.

If I get around to it, I may just take out things not to be released and post a proto-type of the site... or some junk like that.

congrats!! another question.

with such a big game, u must have had some difficulty for the difficulty balance in your game right?

I have no clue.

The reason? We haven't done any of the battle system yet. I'm the kind of guy that wants to work on only one aspect at a time. So we are just doing the scenes of the game. No random battles, and all bosses still have just 1 HP.

But I am taking steps. Come to find out, when you go to a character's initial stats, making them as small as possible makes battle alot easier to custom to your liking. With high stats, you gain way too much of each stat per level. This makes things harder because you are ether too strong or too weak. Reguardless of what you set the initial stats too, they will level up at the same time. For example:I think level 2 always happens after 10 EXP. Now if a character's HP stats are set to.... say 30 or something, they will almost double their HP in just one level. With lower stats they will gain a smaller portion and will make it eaiser for you to customize the difficulty.

But that's as far as I have gone into battle. Once we finish the game and all the scenes and switches and event and all that wonderful jazz is running well, we will go back over and perfect battle.

... I apologize for taking this long to come into the picture ...
Hello, everyone. I am Sarah's Knight (formerly Eagle Vision); another member of SOE's development team. Perhaps you've already heard about me from Lantis a few times? Well, now that my computer finally has Internet access, now I can be here in person, rather than just that mere shadow that you can only hear rumors of across the forum world.

'bout time!

Yep, that's Eagle. The text master himself. Now maybe I can kick back a little bit and let him update this thing. Now if only we can get Clef here...

BTW, you are welcome for you internet connectivity via MY wireless router, Eagle!

Well, now whenever we don't post, get mad at him for slacking off an not doing any text. I'm pretty much stuck without anything to do till he catches back up with me in text. I tried to go ahead and ended up getting swtiches scattered all over the place... It was a nightmare.

Welcome aboard, Eagle!

Well, I've been spending alot of my time working on the ad that will be in the printed issue of the Mag. Apparently it will be the back cover of the actual Magazine... go us.

As for this weekend both me and Eagle are out of pocket. I'm going to Conway AR, and Eagle is going to Sweetwater TN. But seeing as Eagle has finally finished quite a bit of text for a a few scenes, we are planning to sit down monday and really do some work. We might even be closing in on the 9th scenario... 'bout time...

Sarah's Knight - Welcome to the mag. This is a small place, but a good place. You'll like it here.

Lantis - The back cover! Cool. It'll be worth the $60. Just to see your own work in print is a reward in itself, but being on the back cover will ensure that more people see it. Great promo for the game! The best thing is, of course, that it will be in full color. What program are you using to design your ad, just out of curiosity?

Photoshop 7...

and good old fashon MS Paint

I actually bought the ad space to support the Mag in general. But advertising me and my friends game is definately a plus.

New Update:

Scenario 7 is almost complete. Just missing a few scenes.

We've arleady started a bit on 8, including a new side quest.

Updated the offline website up to point with storyline. Also added some more ASCII art.

Eagle is thinking about drawing a world map of the game. If so, I'll update the website with it.

Overall completion: 58%

UH OH!

58%!

Keep up the good work Lantis!

Thanks for the welcome, everyone. I've read the past replies on this thread and am pleased that so many seem to be interested in the finishing of this game. Unfortunately, I am back in school again now so production may slow up a bit, again, but I'll try to keep caught up with the forums so that I can answer any questions you might have, among other things. Who knows? As popular as this game seems to be getting, maybe we'll be able to get old faces like Sang Yung and Clef back onto the staff ....?

Sure would be interesting.

The odd thing is, I can't help but feel how ironic the game is....I mean, me and my friends made a story and were going to write it up on RPG Maker too. However, keeping up with my friends is far more difficult, since one moved out of the country and the other is god-knows-where.

Still, I have hope I'm going to finish it someday. Although, I'm running into memory problems, and I'll probably have to make some important decisions too. Have you ever considered making several different games of this story, instead of several memory cards longer? Unfortunately, I've been a memory hogger so far, so I'm going the several games route.

1ce,
I can understand your being a "memory hogger" when it comes to creating your own RPG, and I appreciate the idea you suggested (did you mean several different games about the same story as in Resident Evil: Outbreak-style, or more of a Saga Frontier kind of thing?). However, we're a little too far into the game to consider making such a drastic change, you know? By the way, Lantis seems to know all of the tricks on managing memory card space and stuff on RPG Maker, so you might want to ask for his help if you need any. Hope you and those friends you spoke of can get back together and create that sort of RPG if that's what you are wishing to do.

Making more than one game is an idea. Though I kind of want to try and push the battle system as far as possible. And to do that, we need a long game. I'm just hoping that we won't need more than one system memory card because the process of changing system data isn't easily explained. But we are over half way and the system is sitting at 8 blocks. I think we will scrape by with a small margin.

Actual, me and Eagle might run into the same problem as you, 1ce. Right now me and Eagle are room mates, but I'll end up moving out before we finish the game... granted I'm not moving out of the country, but it's sure to put a damper on things *sigh*.

Yep. What I meant Eagle, is using as much as you can on the memory cards, then uploading, and making a new set of data with more levels and content. More like, say, Golden Sun. They couldn't make the whole story on one game, so they made two.

Unfortunately, the 'several games' route is the direction I have to go. I've already got everything the way I want it right now, but to change the system to squeeze more memory isn't an option. Ah well.

Sometimes I can't help but feel we're competing. I'm sure you would win, however. This is my first project with RPGMaker, so the beginning may not tun out as well. But you never know...

Nah, we aren't competing. I wish you the best of luck. Besides one of the reasons the Mag is here is for us to help each other... so I would think.

BTW, big round of applause for 1ce here. He did a great job on the interview that's going into the printed issue.

Lol, now SoE will have a full page ad, a best demo poll win, and now a full interview... yay!

*does the happy dance*

You know what Lantis? You're greedy, you should give some of that stuff to me.

*rubs hands diabolically*

Yes... yes... all shall be MINE!!!

Actually, we aren't going to be finished till 2008. This is quite a bit of hype for something that's not going to be out for almost another 2 years.

Oh, I forgot. I have an updated version of the Demo for SoE... the one I gave 1ce. I'm at work so I don't have it with me. Next time I'm home, I'll post it here for you guys.